This application has subject matter in common with the inventor's 55 prior patent applications: U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 10/341,519, 10/883,719, 10/883,747, 10/902,123, 10/954,189, 11/092,741, 11/092,742, 11/094,155. 11/094,156, 11/094,215, 11/152,063, 11/184,771, 11/255,981, 11/498,874, 11/498,881, 11/527,628, 11/527,629, 11/566,322, 11/806,284, 11/806,285, 12/003,691, 12/003,809, 12/007,076, 12/073,095, 12/073,889, 12/149,963, 12/149,964, 12/232,035, 12/232,505, 12/292,153, 12/292,580, 12/318,470, 12/318,471, 12/318,473, 12/502,661, 12/527,628, 12/527,629, 12/527,631, 12/545,992, 12/566,322, 12/622.000, 12/622,100, 12/624,621, 12/710,561, 12/710,918, 12/711,456, 12/771,003, 12/806,711, 12/886,832, 12/887,700, 12/907,443, 12/914,584, 12/938,564, 12/938,628, and 12/938,798.
These prior applications apply optics theory to various lighting devices, including LED lights for outdoor or indoor applications, that are powered by alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC) supplied by an electric cord and plug for an outlet, a battery, a transformer, solar power source, or another power source to create a plurality of LED light beams and provide illumination for close areas, or remote areas, for example by projection means, and which may include more than one light source, more than one function, more than one optics means, and/or more than one projection means with super power saving circuit and cost saving concepts.
Lamp holders with motion sensor, photo sensor, remote control or built-in circuits for different light means are very common in the marketplace. However, only the inventor's U.S. Pat. No. 6,168,282 incorporates one or more electro-luminescent elements to act as light source for a multi-function lamp holder. As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,168,282, which was filed on Oct. 28, 1997, and issued on Jan. 2, 2001, the electro-luminescent elements work with the same power source as the existing lamp holder's power source, which is connected to a 120V AC outlet. For different countries, the outlet power will be different, such as 110V in Taiwan and 250V in China.
The electro-luminescent elements disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,168,282 can connect with the 120V 60 Hz AC current directly to emit a dim light which is just enough for people to see surrounding things or objects but not enough to keep people awake or make it difficult to fall sleep. However, only a green color can be created from the 120V 60 Hz current. Other colored lights need to use an expensive transformer to drive the electro-luminescent elements by supplying a higher frequency of a thousand to tens of thousands of Hertz to attain sufficient brightness and different colors. Hence, electro-luminescent elements have limitations as to the market requirements.
Since the year 2000, so-called high power light emitting diodes (LEDs) have become available in more colors, including white or blue colored LEDs with desired brightness. Because of mass production for use in all kinds of light device, the drive circuit-means has already dropped to a certain acceptable cost range at this time. The current LED light has plenty of different colors, lower power consumption, miniature size, a long life time, a quality of light that is not affected by humidity, and easy installation, and thus the current invention selects the LED as the preferred light source from a variety of different market-available light sources.
The lamp holder of the current invention may take the form of a lamp holder for production line assembly to a light device or a lamp holder which is purchased by people to add to an existing lamp holder. In other words, the lamp holder may be part of an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) light device or a product that a consumer may purchase from a store to add to their own existing lighting device's lamp holder application. It will be appreciated that all kinds of lamp holder with different light sources having all kinds of control means, circuit means, functions, features, performances, shape, or size may fall within the current invention's scope.
The lamp holder of the current invention has a built-in night light which offers LED night light functions, performance, effects, and features that are in addition to the original lamp holder's functions, performance, effects, and features.
The built-in night light of the lamp holder of the current invention can also incorporate another low power consumption light source such as a neon bulb or other light source and is not limited to an LED only. LEDs need a trigger current, which might require a special circuit to achieve, while other light sources such as neon bulbs do not need such expensive circuit means and therefore can be triggered with lower cost to meet market requirements. As a result, the build-in night light may include any kind of light source having night light functions, performance, features, or effects and that may be incorporated with circuit means and/or IC means to cause the night light to be turned on and off according to the predetermined functions performance, features, and effects. The at least one light source arranged on the lamp holder to offer night light functions, features, performance, or effects may incorporate any desired combination of circuit means, IC means, conductive means, receiving base, housing means, ventilation means, opening means, switch means, sensor means, wireless means, remote control means, optics means, shade means, light medium means, light transmitting means, translucent means, optics lens, contact means, trigger means, turn-on and turn-off means, different light sources, LED, neon bulb, fluorescent tube, cold cathode tube, neon light, joint means, lamp base, isolation means, conductive ends, manual switch, pull wire switch, twist switch, push on-off switch, slid switch, touch switch, conductive switch, or other electric parts and accessories to cause the night light to turn on and turn off with a pre-determined timing, duration, time delay, period of time for desired light brightness, color, color temperature, and direction to enable surrounding objects be seen by viewers in a dark environment.
In addition, the light source of the above-described built-in night light may have a wide variety of colors and brightnesses, and may be humidity resistant, non-bendable, inflexible, quiet, and low frequency. This is totally different than the electro-luminescent element of the Inventor's prior patent, cited above, because the electro-luminescent element is very sensitive to humidity, which can cause electrical short circuits that burn the material and cause burn-out marking such as black spots and even fire hazards if the lamination of the electroluminescent element is bad. Hence, the current invention does not use EL elements for the night light. While the electro-luminescent element is bendable or flexible, it cannot have color changing or brightness changing properties without adding an expensive inverter to change the AC current from low frequency 60 Hz to thousands of Hertz, which will result in a high frequency noise that drives animals including dogs and cats crazy or disturbs people's sleep. Furthermore, the conventional electro-luminescent element is made out of a plastic material that cannot overcome the heat created by the light source of the lamp holder and may cause melting problems. Other light sources, such as a neon bulb, LED, bulb, cold cathode light means, or fluorescent tube, are solid and not subject to damage from the heat emitted by the light source of the lamp holder.
The lamp holder with built-in night light can be connected with a power source to turn on the light source via control means, circuit means, IC means, remote control means, and motion sensor means that provide pre-determined function(s). such as a differ function, brightness adjustment, sensitivity adjustment, duration time adjustment, color selection, sensor sensitivity adjustment, timer adjustment, motion sensor angle adjustment, remote control distance or direction adjustment to meet consumer demand.
FIGS. 7-11 of the drawings include illustrations from the inventor's prior U.S. Pat. No. 6,168,282, which show a lamp holder with a built-in night light in the form at least one electro-luminescent element.